There’s never any sugarcoating with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Middleweight champion, Sean Strickland.
Strickland made it big in 2023, taking the throne atop the 185-pound division at UFC 293 in Sydney, Australia last month (Sept. 9, 2023). “Tarzan” got the opportunity to challenge the now-former champion, Israel Adesanya, on a relatively short notice after the promotion struggled to pin down the event’s headliner following top contender, Dricus Du Plessis’, foot injury. Ultimately, it led Strickland to a masterclass of a performance, earning a unanimous decision win over Adesanya (watch highlights) and all the riches that come with being a UFC titleholder.
Times have changed dramatically in mixed martial arts (MMA) and UFC since its creation in 1993. Recently sitting down to chat with T.J. DeSantis and UFC Hall of Famer, Don Frye, Strickland picked the brain of the legend, asking how much he made during his 10 fights in 1996. DeSantis highlighted that UFC tournament winners at the time received a $50,000 reward, prompting Frye to reveal that $500 per fight was the norm outside of that.
Storytime with Strickland then followed.
“Hey, you want to be a UFC fighter,” Strickland said in a video he posted to his Instagram (h/t MMA Fighting). “$500 bucks. … But you know, it’s not that much different now, man. It’s funny, this guy came up to me, and he said, ‘Hey, you know, my son’s 17, he trains, he wants to be a fighter. Do you have any advice?’
“I said, ‘Don’t do it.’ He goes, ‘What do you mean?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, let me explain to you, sir.’ Let me explain if you guys have kids at home who want to be a fighter. Let me explain to you the joy of being an MMA fighter.
“I was like, ‘You see the Contender [Series fighters], what do you think they make?’ And he goes, ‘I don’t know.’ I go, ‘They make five and five ($5,000 to show, $5,000 to win). If they lose, they make five.’ And he goes, ‘Damn.’ I go, ‘If you lose, guess what, you’re not going to UFC.’ So this entire life you could have spent building a life, doing any other aspect in life, you chose to train fighting.
“So let’s just say you make it now you make it to the UFC,” he continued. “Well, hey, guess what, what do you think they sign the average guy on? … 10 and 10 for this man. So you make it to UFC, you get signed, 10 and 10, and now you fight for 10 and 10, and you’ve spent your entire life working for this one goal. You get the blue check mark, you get the UFC in your logo, you get all the people, you get all of it now. So you go 2-2 and maybe they’re boring fights, and the UFC cuts you, and now guess what? You have made a total of … $60,000 your entire career, and you have no other option because you can’t be a part-time fighter. You’ve got to be full-time.
“So now you’re a 24-year-old man looking yourself in the mirror saying, ‘I spent my entire life doing this one thing and I’ve made $24,000, or $60,000. What do I do now? You go teach cardio kickboxing.
“And that’s, like, the damn shame of like most industry,” Strickland concluded. “It’s like you get kind of [Harvey] Weinstein-d. They put this big old f—king UFC logo — and again, I love UFC, guys. I make more money in the UFC than f—king, I mean, I am not a poor man, you guys. I would be in the rich category, which still f—king shocks me every time I think about it. But they put this big old f—king logo and you sell your f—king soul for it. You sell your f—king soul for it, man.”
Strickland has been vocal about the intricacies of fighter pay within the sport in the past, going as far as to call fighters “prostitutes” — for a variety of reasons. Regardless of his feelings, Strickland has stated on numerous occasions that he’s content with where he’s at and what he does. The champion currently awaits his first title defense, which he expects to get booked for early 2024.